More than likely, you won’t see a balanced schedule going forward,” Garber said recently during a meeting with fans. “The real question is whether we have a competition that is conference based, which means you’re playing against your conference more, or is it rivalry based, which would work well for television but might be less balanced in terms of the fairness of the competition.” “Everything’s on the table, from single table to conference-laden, geography-based scheduling,” Rodriguez said. “More games, less games — all on the table. (Calendar) footprint, on the table. We have to look at it all. We have to make a short-term decision for 2012, ’13 perhaps, but we have to take a longer view.” http://wvhooligan.com/2011/08/23/11817/pondering-the-2012-mls-schedule/ When members of the competition committee meet on Friday, holding the line at 34 games or expanding to 36 will be one of the topics up for discussion, MLS Commissioner Don Garber said Wednesday during a season-ticket rally here for the Columbus Crew. The perfect symmetry that is 18 teams playing a 34-game schedule will be difficult to maintain next year when the Montreal Impact join MLS, Garber said. No further expansion plans have been announced past Montreal, but the Commissioner said the league is preparing for the inevitable. “It will be impossible to be balanced at 20 or 22 [teams],” he said. “It’s just too many games for a professional soccer league.” http://www.mlssoccer.com/news/article/2011/09/14/garber-talks-schedule-crew-kick-goal-10k-initiative
Report: MLS 2012 Season to Start Week of March 4 By Robert Hay on September 30, 2011 A report out of Toronto indicates that MLS fans had better get their overcoats ready for First Kick 2012. Duane Rollins reports that Toronto FC executives told a fan gathering that they expect the MLS season to begin Saturday, March 10, with the First Game logically falling on March 8. The start, which would be the earliest in MLS history, would be earlier than usual because the league would incorporate the three World Cup qualifying periods into the schedule. The executives also confirmed that the league would be keeping the 34 game schedule which, with the addition of Montreal, would necessitate unbalanced scheduling. The Toronto FC executives confirm what many season ticket holders knew and subsequent league sources have confirmed, that the league would keep its 34 game schedule for now. How the unbalanced schedule will shake out is unknown, although the league executives did meet two weekends ago to discuss next year’s schedule. http://www.majorleaguesoccertalk.co...268?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
